A Hint of Heather

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  “And if she’s not interested in finding another protector?”

  “She’ll have to be interested. Neil has a countess now. He won’t be needing a mistress.”

  His quiet belief that Neil would be as honorable and as faithful as he was one of the things Lady Chisenden loved about her husband. He understood that dishonor and unfaithfulness existed in other families, in other households, but he couldn’t conceive of it inhabiting his own. Lord Chisenden seemed confident that Neil’s man of business would be able to buy Deborah Sheridan off, but Lady Chisenden wasn’t so sure. The widow had a reputation for being a spendthrift and she had worked long and hard to capture Neil’s attention and get her hands on part of his fortune. Most men, her husband and grandson included, acted with honor and assumed others did the same, but the marchioness of Chisenden was under no such illusion. She didn’t completely trust that Neil’s man of business would do the job he’d been hired to do and she sincerely doubted that her grandson’s mistress would do the honorable and ladylike thing and quietly relinquish her position. And if that was the case, it wouldn’t hurt to pay the widow a friendly call to encourage her cooperation.

  She patted her husband’s forearm. “You take care of the other details, Louis dear,” she told him. “I’ll take care of the shoes, the gowns, the household, the nursery.” And the mistress, she silently added.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What have we here?” Neil paused before a door made of thick iron lattice tucked away in one of the many passages hidden deep below the castle. He tried to open the door, but there were two sturdy locks on it and both of them were locked. “Tam, do you know where this door leads?”

  “Aye, it leads to the hidden chamber.” Tam stood beside him.

  “Really?” Neil’s face lit up like a child’s. “A secret room? I guess we’ll find out in a minute. I need to inspect that section of the tunnel, too, but the door is locked. Do you have a key?” He turned to Tam. The two of them had spent the morning salvaging timbers from the abandoned crofters’ houses outside the castle grounds, collecting and hauling the charred, but otherwise sound, beams into the outer bailey where they would be used to shore up the weakened walls of the castle once the stonemasons arrived from Edinburgh and began work. It was cold and dark in the tunnels and the air heavy and musty-smelling. Neil was eager to complete his inspection and return to the sunshine above ground. Neil shivered as the sweat-soaked length of tartan knotted around his waist dried in the cool air of the tunnels.

  “If it’s the room I think it is, ye have the key,” Tam told him, pointing to the key dangling from the end of the silver chain around his neck. “She wore it beneath her bodice with her key until she ga’e it to ye.”

  Neil fingered the key, then studied the locks on the door. Two locks. Two keys. Were the keys identical? Did the one key open the twin locks? Or did it take both keys to open the door to this particular room in the castle? He pulled the silver chain from around his neck and inserted the key into the lock. Turning it, Neil heard the tumblers click into place. His key opened the first lock. Did it also open the second one? He was about to try it when Tam alerted him.

  “Someone’s comin’.”

  Neil instinctively snatched the key from the first lock. He turned and stepped away from the door to face the intruder, then raised his arms and dropped the silver chain over his head and around his neck.

  “Mind your kilt, mon,” Tam warned, pointing to the knot on Neil’s belly that had slipped dangerously low on Neil’s hip. “Ye wouldna’ be wantin’ to gi’e our visitor a show.”

  Neil listened as the sound of bare feet pattering against stone echoed down the tunnel. The footsteps sounded too light and quick to be a man. He tightened the knot at his waist, securing his tartan. “I only want to give one woman a show. Do you think she’s interested?”

  “Aye,” Tam said. “She maun ha’e followed ye down here. She’s been watchin’ ye fer weeks. But only when she’s sure ye can’t see her doin’ it.”

  “Are you certain?” Neil demanded, doubt evident in every word. His plan to make his bride jealous had misfired. After two weeks of marriage, the MacInnes’s resistance to him seemed stronger than ever. Other than gaining a much greater appreciation for the toughness of Scottish warriors, he was no better off for having challenged the MacInnes to a battle of wills or for having spent two weeks shirtless, bootless and bare-arsed. The other women in the village might stop work to watch him walk by, but the MacInnes never seemed to notice. She had successfully avoided pleating his kilt in the morning and avoided snaring his bed every night since the wedding. Neil thought it the height of irony that he slept in the laird’s bed, especially since it was patently obvious to anyone who cared to look that the laird did not.

  “Aye. I’m certain. And she’s not the only one,” Tam grumbled. “At least one part of yer plan is workin’.”

  Neil turned to find Sorcha MacInnes coming down the hallway, her hips swaying in invitation as she carried a tallow candle in a dish toward him. He groaned aloud as she approached.

  “I saw ye and Tam come down here and I knew the rushes in the torches were old and dry and I knew ye’d need more light,” she said when she reached him. “I brought ye one.”

  Neil recoiled from the stench of the candle made of rancid fat. “That wasn’t necessary,” he said.

  “Och, but it was,” she replied. “We canna have the laird’s new husband fumblin’ around in the dark.” She held the dish out to him, cradling it in her hands at breast level, offering it to him along with a unencumbered view of her magnificent bosom.

  “Thank you.” Neil averted his gaze from the display of creamy flesh as he accepted the candle from her and set it in a niche above their heads directly opposite from the niche that held the rush torches.

  “Will the light be enough? Or can I offer ye sumthin’ more?” Sorcha clutched at Neil’s arm, trailing her fingers down his arm from his elbow to his fingertips, gently caressing the back of his hand with her fingers in an unmistakable gesture.

  Neil pulled his hand out of her grasp and stepped away from her. “No, thank you. One is more than enough.”

  Undeterred by his withdrawal, Sorcha moistened her lips and batting her eyelashes at him, tried another approach. “Those timbers look awfully heavy and ye have been workin’ so verra hard today. Ye must be verra strong and powerful. I’ve never seen a young and handsome Sassenach earl who could heft such heavy beams.”

  “Ye’ve never even seen any Sassenach earl,” Auld Tam pointedly reminded her. “Young or otherwise.”

  Frowning at his intrusion, Sorcha whirled on Auld Tam. “I dinna ask ye to speak yer mind, so what ye say is of no consequence to me, auld mon.”

  “I’ve earned the right to speak my mind whenever I choose,” Tam told her.

  “This is between the laird’s husband and me.” Sorcha moved closer to Neil and linked her arm around his. “ ’Tis none of yer business, old mon.”

  “When the young widow of one of my kinsmen begins flauntin’ herself beneath the laird’s husband’s nose, the laird’s husband becomes my business.”

  “Why shouldna I flaunt myself around him if he’s willin’?” Sorcha demanded. “Jessie’s made it verra clear that she doesna want him.”

  “She wants me.” Neil made his meaning very clear as he deliberately disengaged himself from the comely widow’s embrace. “She may not show it, but she wants me. Almost as much as I want her.” He looked down at Sorcha. “And even if that were not so, I am not in the market for a mistress, nor am I on the market. I am husband to the laird of your clan.”

  “Ye said yerself that ye were brought here to be a stud.”

  “For the MacInnes,” he said coldly. “And for no one else. I won’t be servicing you or any of the other women. As far as you’re concerned, I might as well be a gelding. I take my vows seriously. I don’t dally with kinswomen, no matter how available they are or how prettily packaged.”

  Sorcha st
ared at his bare chest. “ ’Tis a pity.” She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “And a waste, ’cause Jessie’s cold—”

  “Really?” Neil made the query sound ironic, as if nothing could be further from the truth.

  “And verra, verra stubborn. She no be warmin’ yer bed or pleatin’ yer kilt for ye anytime soon and if ye keep flauntin’ yer prettily packaged wares like this, ye’ll wind up a frozen gelding come winter.”

  More footsteps echoed down the tunnel—angry, strident footsteps that could only belong to one person. Neil turned his head toward them and his gaze collided with the MacInnes’s. The look she sent him was scorching and Neil knew that if looks could kill both he and Sorcha would be needing last rites. Even from this distance he could see that the MacInnes was spoiling for a fight and for the first time since he’d issued his ridiculous challenge, Neil felt a glimmer of hope. His plan was working. She was very adept at hiding her feelings, but that spark of jealousy that glowed in the MacInnes’s dark blue eyes couldn’t be disguised. And the MacInnes’s jealousy was just what he needed. “Maybe before.” Neil laughed. “But it’s not bloody likely now.” He reached out, took hold of Sorcha’s hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her work-roughened knuckles before releasing it. “You, my dear kinswoman, have been the answer to my prayers.” He might be dead by winter, but he wouldn’t be a victim of the cold. He’d stake his life on it.

  Jessalyn came to a stop in front of the little group. The earl of Derrowford stood with his back to the door leading to the Laird’s Trysting Room. Auld Tam was on his right and Sorcha stood facing him. Jessalyn walked to Tam. Her voice was cool and crisp with authority as she spoke. “If you will excuse us, Tam, I’d like to speak to Lord Derrowford and Sorcha alone.”

  Tam doffed his bonnet and bowed slightly to the laird as he withdrew.

  Jessalyn waited until the sound of his footsteps receded before she turned to Sorcha. “The other women are in the courtyard bundling bracken into thatch for the roofs of the cottages. What are you doing down here?”

  A head taller than the laird, Sorcha placed her hands on her hips and stared down at Jessalyn, an impudent expression on her face. “I saw His Lordship and Auld Tam come down here and I thought His Lordship might need another candle.” She raised her chin and gestured toward the tallow candle. “I brought one.”

  There was no need for candles in the outer bailey where the other women were working. The sun was shining. In order to supply Neil and Tam with a candle, Sorcha had to leave her task and go into the castle to collect one and take it to them. This was the third time she’d caught her cousin’s widow eyeing her husband. Had he encouraged it? Had he arranged to meet her here or had she followed him? Jessalyn glanced from Neil to Sorcha. She had entered the tunnel in time to see him kissing the young widow’s hand. She would rather have bitten out her tongue than ask the question or hear the answer, but Jessalyn couldn’t help herself. She had to know. “Did His Lordship ask ye to help him?”

  Sorcha shook her head so that her thick, curly brown hair tumbled over her shoulders and cascaded down her back. She looked up at the earl from beneath the cover of her eyelashes. “Nay. I just thought—”

  Jessalyn cut her off. “I think it might be best if you return to your duties in the bailey and help the others.”

  The impudent expression on Sorcha’s face turned mutinous as Jessalyn dismissed her. She opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it and turned on her heel and walked back down the tunnel toward the outer bailey.

  Neil lifted an eyebrow in query. “Would you care to explain?”

  Jessalyn shrugged her shoulders.

  “Then perhaps I should tell you that I don’t think Sorcha cared very much for your suggestion,” Neil commented. “She didn’t appear to be in any hurry to leave us alone.”

  “She dinna ha’e to care for like my suggestion,” Jessalyn explained. “She had to obey it.”

  “Or …”

  “She would be punished.”

  “By whom?”

  “By me,” Jessalyn said. “In the highlands, the laird has the power of life and death o’er members of the clan. And it wasna me she dinna want to leave, ’twas you.”

  Neil pursed his lips. “I see,” he said, softly. He was beginning to learn to read the MacInnes’s moods a little better. During the past two weeks, he had noticed that her English was very precise and proper when she was in control of her emotions, but her Scottish burr became very pronounced when she was disturbed or upset. “Tell me, Laird MacInnes, would you have punished your kinswoman for disobeying you or for offering to provide me with meager comfort?”

  “Trysting with the laird’s spouse is punishable by banishment from the clan or by death.”

  “Trysting? With Sorcha?” Neil lifted his eyebrow in query once again. “Is that what you think I was doing?”

  “Yer standin’ in front of the door that leads to the Laird’s Trysting Room.”

  “The what?” Neil sputtered, blinking in surprise. “I’m sure I cannot have heard you correctly. Did you say the laird’s trysting room?”

  “Aye,” Jessalyn bit out the word.

  “There’s a room for trysting hidden away in the depths of the castle?”

  “Aye and it belongs to the laird.”

  “You’re the laird,” he pointed out. “It’s your room. Since I didn’t know it existed, how can you accuse me of arranging a tryst in it with your kinswomen?”

  “Ye have a key to it,” she retorted, pointing to the chain around his neck.

  “So do you.”

  “I’ve never used my key,” she told him.

  “Neither have I,” he replied. “Except to try the lock.”

  She gasped. “Ye unlocked the door while Sorcha was here?”

  “Jealous?”

  “Of Sorcha? Dinna be ridiculous!”

  But she was. Neil could see it in the spark of fire in her blue eyes, hear it in her voice. He was tempted to taunt the MacInnes with the knowledge of her jealousy of her kin, but decided against it. He refused to give her a reason to punish Sorcha. In her present prickly mood, there was no telling what that punishment might be. “I tried the first lock,” he said. “Before your clanswoman arrived. I abandoned my attempt when I heard her footsteps in the tunnel. Are you certain there’s a room behind that door or that it’s used for that one special purpose?” He stared into her eyes and there was a wealth of meaning behind his question.

  Jessalyn ignored the meaning behind his question and concentrated on fact. “It’s there. And it was used for that purpose.”

  “How do you know it’s there?” Neil queried. “If you’ve never seen it.”

  “My father told me of it. I know who built it and why.”

  “Then it’s a recent construction?”

  Jessalyn shook her head. “Nay. My ancestor built it over a hundred years ago so he could meet and court his enemy’s daughter in complete secrecy.”

  “Was he successful?”

  “Of course,” Jessalyn replied. “That MacInnes tunneled to the edge of his enemy’s land, abducted the man’s daughter and married her without her father’s knowledge or consent.”

  Neil curled his index finger around his chin and pretended to be deep in thought. “After a hundred years, the existence of the tunnel and the room must be common knowledge …”

  “Nay. Only the Ancient Gentlemen who make up the laird’s privy council know that a hidden room exists. But it’s possible that Flora or Magda or Alisdair’s wife, Davina, know of it.”

  “Is your ancestor’s enemy still an enemy of Clan MacInnes or has the enmity between your clans melded into friendship?”

  “There will never be a friendship between Clan MacInnes and that murdering clan.” Jessalyn’s vehement denial brought a smile to Neil’s lips.

  “Then I needn’t worry about you trysting with a former enemy in the secret room.”

  Jessalyn’s mouth feel open. She couldn’t believe the earl had t
he audacity to smile at her after suggesting such a thing. “Certainly not!” she retorted. “I dinna enjoy it wi’ ye and I ha’e no interest in breakin’ my marriage vows by sharin’ my bed wi’ any other man or of allowin’ him to do that to me again.”

  Neil frowned and the deep furrows in his forehead marred the perfection of his face. “It’s not all bad, you know.”

  “Not all bad for men, ye mean.”

  “Or for women when it’s done right.” He reached out and gently pulled a strand of Jessalyn’s reddish-brown hair from the corner of her mouth. He stared into her eyes. “Ah, lass,” his imitation Scottish burr was deep and tender. “I dinna do it right the first time and I’ve done ye a terrible disservice. Did ye not find any pleasure in the act at all?”

  Jessalyn shuddered in distaste, then tucked her chin and focused her gaze on her feet. “Why should I?” She blushed at the memory. “ ’Twas embarrassin’ and messy and painful.” And lonely. She had thought that the act would be one of sharing when the two would become one. But she’d experienced none of the closeness, none of the sharing she’d expected. After the embarrassingly intimate act, she’d felt alone, lonely and ill-used. She’d lain wide awake battling tears of frustration and disappointment as she listened to him sleep.

  Neil winced as her innocent words twisted a knot into his belly. He’d promised her a wonderful initiation into the world of lovemaking and boasted of his ability to give her pleasure, but the reality had been a huge disappointment. He had been a huge disappointment. Neil moved closer to her. Reaching out, he tilted her chin up with his index finger so he could look into her face and read the expressions mirrored there. “Wasn’t there anything you enjoyed about the evening? Other than the money and the wedding feast?” He managed a wry smile at the memory of Jessalyn MacInnes’s shining eyes as she stared at the gold and silver coins and the covetous gaze she’d cast at his unwanted bowl of oatmeal.

  He watched as the MacInnes gave his question serious thought. “I liked the way ye looked at me when I was lyin’ on the bed,” she answered shyly.